麦可·法拉第Michael Faraday

麦可·法拉第并没有直接对数学做出贡献，所以严格来说不应该有资格在这个档案中拥有传记。然而，他是一位如此重要的人物，他的科学对发展数学理论的人的工作产生了如此大的影响，因此将他包括在内是恰当的。我们在下面会更多地谈到这一点。

法拉第的父亲James Faraday是一位来自英格兰北部约克郡的铁匠，而他的母亲玛格丽特·哈斯特韦尔也来自英格兰北部，是一位农民的女儿。1791年初，詹姆斯和玛格丽特搬到了纽因顿巴茨，当时这是伦敦郊外的一个村庄，詹姆斯希望那里工作机会更多。在搬到纽因顿巴茨之前，他们已经有了两个孩子，一个男孩罗伯特和一个女孩，而法拉第在他们搬家后仅几个月就出生了。

工作并不容易找到，全家再次搬家，但仍留在伦敦或伦敦附近。到1795年，当法拉第大约五岁时，全家住在伦敦的雅各布井马厩。他们在一家马车房上面有房间，此时第二个女儿已经出生。日子很艰难，尤其是因为法拉第的父亲身体不好，无法为家庭提供多少支持。

这家人因强烈的宗教信仰而紧密团结在一起，他们是桑德曼派成员，这是从苏格兰教会分裂出来的一种新教教会。桑德曼派相信圣经的字面真理，并试图重现早期基督教会的爱与社区感。宗教影响对法拉第很重要，因为他后来发展的理论深受世界统一性信念的影响。

法拉第上了一所走读学校，在那里他学会了读、写和算。当法拉第十三岁时，他不得不找工作来帮助家庭经济，他受雇为乔治·里鲍跑腿，后者有一家书商生意。1805年，在当了一年跑腿男孩后，法拉第被里鲍收为学徒装订工。他在里鲍那里当了七年学徒。他不仅装订书籍，还阅读它们。里鲍在1813年写了一封信，其中描述了法拉第作为学徒是如何度过他的日子的（例如见[4]）：-

在正常的营业时间之后，他主要从事绘画和临摹《艺术家宝库》，这是一部分期出版的作品，他每周都买。……然后他读沃茨博士的《心灵的改进》，并且经常把它放在口袋里，当他清晨散步时，参观一些其他艺术作品或寻找一些矿物或植物珍品。……他的头脑总是忙于思考，除了以适当的方式完成装订工作。

His mode of living temperate, seldom drinking any other than pure water, and when done his day's work, would set himself down in the workshop ... If I had any curious book from my customers to bind, with plates, he would copy such as he thought singular or clever ...

法拉第自己写到了他生命中的这段时间：-

当学徒时，我喜欢读我手头的科学书籍……

从1810年起，法拉第在弗瑞兹·约翰塔图姆家听课。他听了许多不同主题的讲座，但他对电学、流电学和力学特别感兴趣。在塔图姆家，他交了两个特别的朋友，一个是医学生J·赫克斯特布尔，另一个是职员Benjamin Abbott。1812年，法拉第在皇家研究所听了汉弗莱·戴维的讲座，并仔细抄录了他所做的笔记。事实上，这些讲座将成为法拉第通往科学生涯的通行证。

1812年，为了提升自己的文学技能，他与埃德温·A·阿博特通信。他此前已试图离开书籍装订行业，而他尝试的途径无疑颇具雄心。他曾写信给皇家学会院长约瑟夫·班克斯爵士，询问如何才能参与科学工作。也许并不意外，他没有收到回复。1812年10月学徒期满后，法拉第找到了一份书籍装订的工作，但他仍试图进入科学界，并且再次为一个几乎没有受过正规教育的年轻人选择了一条颇为雄心勃勃的途径。他写信给汉弗莱·戴维——自听过其化学讲座以来，戴维一直是他的英雄——并寄去自己在戴维讲座上所做的笔记副本。与班克斯不同，戴维回复了法拉第并安排了会面。他建议法拉第继续做书籍装订工作，说道：

科学[是]一位严苛的女主人，从金钱角度看，她对献身于其服务的人回报甚微。

会面后不久，戴维的助手因斗殴不得不被解雇，戴维便派人叫来法拉第，邀请他填补这个空缺职位。1813年，法拉第在皇家研究所就任该职。

1813年10月，戴维出发进行欧洲科学旅行，并带法拉第同行，担任他的助手和秘书。法拉第在巴黎会见了安德烈-马里·安培和其他科学家。他们继续前往意大利，在热那亚、佛罗伦萨、罗马和那不勒斯度过了一段时间。再次北上时，他们访问了米兰，法拉第在那里会见了伏打。这次旅行对法拉第[4]来说很重要：

这十八个月的国外经历，在法拉第的生活中取代了其他人上大学所度过的岁月。他掌握了实用的法语和意大利语；他的科学造诣大为增加，并结识和交谈过许多外国顶尖科学家；但最重要的是，这次旅行对当时的他来说是最有价值的，是一种开阔视野的影响。

回到伦敦后，法拉第 再次受聘于皇家研究院担任助理。他在那里的工作主要涉及实验室中的化学实验。他还开始在哲学学会就化学主题进行讲座。1816年，他发表了第一篇论文，内容是关于来自托斯卡纳的苛性石灰。

1821年，法拉第与Sarah Barnard结婚，他是在参加Sandemanian教堂时认识她的。法拉第被任命为皇家研究所的房屋和实验室主管，并获得了额外的房间，使他的婚姻成为可能。

1821年是法拉第 研究中的另一个重要时期。他几乎完全致力于化学主题，但自从当装订工时就有的兴趣之一便是电学。1820年，包括弗朗索瓦·阿拉戈和安德烈-马里·安培在内的几位巴黎科学家在建立电与磁之间关系方面取得了重大进展。戴维对此产生了兴趣，这给了法拉第研究该课题的机会。他于1821年10月在Quarterly Journal of Science上发表了On some new electro-magnetical motions, and on the theory of magnetism。皮尔斯·威廉姆斯写道[1]：-

它记录了电能首次转化为机械能。它还包含了力线的第一个概念。

正是法拉第在电学方面的工作促使我们将他加入这个档案。然而我们必须指出，法拉第绝不是一位数学家，几乎所有他的传记作者都将他描述为“数学文盲”。他从未学过任何数学，他对电学的贡献纯粹是实验性的。那么为什么要将他列入数学家的档案呢？嗯，正是法拉第的工作导致了电与磁的深刻数学理论。特别是，如果没有法拉第发现的各种定律，詹姆斯·克拉克·麦克斯韦在该主题上发展的非凡数学理论就不可能实现。这是詹姆斯·克拉克·麦克斯韦本人多次强调的一点。

从1821年到1831年的十年间，法拉第再次从事化学研究。在此期间，他在化学方面最重要的两项工作是1823年液化氯和1825年分离苯。在这两个日期之间，1824年，他当选为皇家学会会士。这对法拉第来说是一段困难时期，因为Davy当时是皇家学会主席，无法接受他仍视为助手的人成为会士。尽管Davy反对他的当选，但其他会士否决了他。法拉第从未因这件事对Davy怀恨在心，始终对他怀有最高的敬意。

法拉第于1826年在皇家研究院为儿童推出一系列六次圣诞讲座。1831年，法拉第回到电学研究，并做出了可以说是他最重要的发现，即电磁感应。这一发现与他十年前所做的发现相反。他表明磁体可以在导线中感应出电流。因此，他能够将机械能转化为电能，并发现了第一台发电机。他再次将力线作为其思考的核心。1831年，他发表了第一篇论文，该论文后来成为关于Experimental researches on electricity的一系列论文之一。同年11月24日，他在皇家学会上宣读了这篇论文。

1832年，法拉第因其对科学的重大贡献开始获得荣誉。同年，他获得牛津大学荣誉学位。1833年2月，他成为皇家研究院的富勒化学讲席教授。随后又获得了皇家学会颁发的皇家奖章和科普利奖章等更多荣誉。1836年，他被任命为伦敦大学评议会成员，这是一项皇家任命。

在此期间，从1833年开始，法拉第在电化学方面做出了重要发现。他接着研究静电学，到1838年他[1]：-

……能够将所有碎片整合成一个连贯的电学理论。

极高的工作负荷最终影响了法拉第的健康，1839年他患上了神经衰弱。他确实恢复了健康，到1845年他又开始了紧张的研究活动。他此时所从事的工作是该学科数学发展的结果。法拉第关于力线的思想得到了开尔文的数学处理。1845年8月6日他写信给法拉第，告诉他自己关于磁场应影响偏振光平面的数学预测。法拉第许多年前曾试图用实验检测这一点，但没有成功。现在，在开尔文强化了这一想法之后，他再次尝试，并于1845年9月13日成功地证明了强磁场可以使偏振平面旋转，而且旋转角度与磁场强度成正比。法拉第写道（例如见[1]）：-

物质力中具有磁性的部分受到了影响，并且反过来又影响了光的力中真正具有磁性的部分。

他沿着自己的实验路线前进，这使他发现了抗磁性。

到19世纪50年代中期，法拉第的智力开始衰退。大约同时，詹姆斯·克拉克·麦克斯韦正在法拉第创造的基础上发展一种数学理论，而这种理论对法拉第来说始终是遥不可及的。然而，法拉第继续在皇家研究院讲课，但于1857年谢绝了皇家学会主席的职位。

他继续为儿童举办圣诞讲座。1859-60年，他就物质的各种力做了圣诞讲座。接下来的圣诞节，他为孩子们做了关于蜡烛化学历史的讲座。法拉第的这两个最后的系列讲座被出版，并已成为经典。由法拉第开创的皇家研究院圣诞讲座延续至今，但由于电视转播，现在拥有更多的听众。我[EFR]多年来怀着极大的兴趣观看了这些讲座。对于像我这样对“公众理解科学”感兴趣的人来说，它们是一种享受。我特别记得Carl Sagan关于“行星”的讲座，以及埃里克·克里斯托弗·齐曼和Ian Stewart的数学讲座。

皇家研究院的文献记载道：-

[法拉第的]磁学实验室，他在那里做出了许多最重要的发现，于1972年被恢复为已知其在1854年时的样子。实验室旁边的一座博物馆收藏了一批独特的原始仪器，其布置旨在展示法拉第在皇家研究院五十年间对科学进步所作巨大贡献的最重要方面。

Martin在[4]中这样说明法拉第的性格：-

无论以何种意义、何种标准衡量，他都是一个好人；然而他的善良并非那种让人在他面前感到不自在的善良。他强烈的个人责任感并未夺走他生活中的欢愉。……他的美德是行动的美德，而非仅仅是不作为的美德……

Michael Faraday did not directly contribute to mathematics so should not really qualify to have his biography in this archive. However he was such a major figure and his science had such a large impact on the work of those developing mathematical theories that it is proper that he is included. We say more about this below.

Faraday's father, James Faraday, was a blacksmith who came from Yorkshire in the north of England while his mother Margaret Hastwell, also from the north of England, was the daughter of a farmer. Early in 1791 James and Margaret moved to Newington Butts, which was then a village outside London, where James hoped that work was more plentiful. They already had two children, a boy Robert and a girl, before they moved to Newington Butts and Michael was born only a few months after their move.

Work was not easy to find and the family moved again, remaining in or around London. By 1795, when Michael was around five years, the family were living in Jacob's Wells Mews in London. They had rooms over a coachhouse and, by this time, a second daughter had been born. Times were hard particularly since Michael's father had poor health and was not able to provide much for his family.

The family were held closely together by a strong religious faith, being members of the Sandemanians, a form of the Protestant Church which had split from the Church of Scotland. The Sandemanians believed in the literal truth of the Bible and tried to recreate the sense of love and community which had characterised the early Christian Church. The religious influence was important for Faraday since the theories he developed later in his life were strongly influenced by a belief in a unity of the world.

Michael attended a day school where he learnt to read, write and count. When Faraday was thirteen years old he had to find work to help the family finances and he was employed running errands for George Riebau who had a bookselling business. In 1805, after a year as an errand-boy, Faraday was taken on by Riebau as an apprentice bookbinder. He spent seven years serving his apprenticeship with Riebau. Not only did he bind books but he also read them. Riebau wrote a letter in 1813 in which he described how Faraday spent his days as an apprentice (see for example [4]):-

After the regular hours of business, he was chiefly employed in drawing and copying from the Artist's Repository, a work published in numbers which he took in weekly. ... Dr Watts's Improvements of the mind was then read and frequently took in his pocket, when he went an early walk in the morning, visiting some other works of art or searching for some mineral or vegetable curiosity. ... His mind ever engaged, besides attending to bookbinding which he executed in a proper manner.

His mode of living temperate, seldom drinking any other than pure water, and when done his day's work, would set himself down in the workshop ... If I had any curious book from my customers to bind, with plates, he would copy such as he thought singular or clever ...

Faraday himself wrote of this time in his life:-

Whilst an apprentice, I loved to read the scientific books which were under my hands ...

From 1810 Faraday attended lectures at John Tatum's house. He attended lectures on many different topics but he was particularly interested in those on electricity, galvanism and mechanics. At Tatum's house he made two special friends, J Huxtable who was a medical student, and Benjamin Abbott who was a clerk. In 1812 Faraday attended lectures by Humphry Davy at the Royal Institution and made careful copies of the notes he had taken. In fact these lectures would become Faraday's passport to a scientific career.

In 1812, intent on improving his literary skills, he carried out a correspondence with Abbott. He had already tried to leave bookbinding and the route he tried was certainly an ambitious one. He had written to Sir Joseph Banks, the President of the Royal Society, asking how he could become involved in scientific work. Perhaps not surprisingly he had received no reply. When his apprenticeship ended in October 1812, Faraday got a job as a bookbinder but still he attempted to get into science and again he took a somewhat ambitious route for a young man with little formal education. He wrote to Humphry Davy, who had been his hero since he attended his chemistry lectures, sending him copies of the notes he had taken at Davy's lectures. Davy, unlike Banks, replied to Faraday and arranged a meeting. He advised Faraday to keep working as a bookbinder, saying:-

Science [is] a harsh mistress, and in a pecuniary point of view but poorly rewarding those who devote themselves to her service.

Shortly after the interview Davy's assistant had to be sacked for fighting and Davy sent for Faraday and invited him to fill the empty post. In 1813 Faraday took up the position at the Royal Institution.

In October 1813 Davy set out on a scientific tour of Europe and he took Faraday with him as his assistant and secretary. Faraday met Ampère and other scientists in Paris. They travelled on towards Italy where they spent time in Genoa, Florence, Rome and Naples. Heading north again they visited Milan where Faraday met Volta. The trip was an important one for Faraday [4]:-

These eighteen months abroad had taken the place, in Faraday's life, of the years spent at university by other men. He gained a working knowledge of French and Italian; he had added considerably to his scientific attainments, and had met and talked with many of the leading foreign men of science; but, above all, the tour had been what was most valuable to him at that time, a broadening influence.

On his return to London, Faraday was re-engaged at the Royal Institution as an assistant. His work there was mainly involved with chemical experiments in the laboratory. He also began lecturing on chemistry topics at the Philosophical Society. He published his first paper in 1816 on caustic lime from Tuscany.

In 1821 Faraday married Sarah Barnard whom he had met when attending the Sandemanian church. Faraday was made Superintendent of the House and Laboratory at the Royal Institution and given additional rooms to make his marriage possible.

The year 1821 marked another important time in Faraday's researches. He had worked almost entirely on chemistry topics yet one of his interests from his days as a bookbinder had been electricity. In 1820 several scientists in Paris including Arago and Ampère made significant advances in establishing a relation between electricity and magnetism. Davy became interested and this gave Faraday the opportunity to work on the topic. He published On some new electro-magnetical motions, and on the theory of magnetism in the Quarterly Journal of Science in October 1821. Pearce Williams writes [1]:-

It records the first conversion of electrical into mechanical energy. It also contained the first notion of the line of force.

It is Faraday's work on electricity which has prompted us to add him to this archive. However we must note that Faraday was in no sense a mathematician and almost all his biographers describe him as "mathematically illiterate". He never learnt any mathematics and his contributions to electricity were purely that of an experimentalist. Why then include him in an archive of mathematicians? Well, it was Faraday's work which led to deep mathematical theories of electricity and magnetism. In particular the remarkable mathematical theories on the topic developed by Maxwell would not have been possible without Faraday's discovery of various laws. This is a point which Maxwell himself stressed on a number of occasions.

In the ten years from 1821 to 1831 Faraday again undertook research on chemistry. His two most important pieces of work on chemistry during that period was liquefying chlorine in 1823 and isolating benzene in 1825. Between these dates, in 1824, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. This was a difficult time for Faraday since Davy was at this time President of the Royal Society and could not see the man whom he still thought of as his assistant as becoming a Fellow. Although Davy opposed his election, he was over-ruled by the other Fellows. Faraday never held the incident against Davy, always holding him in the highest regard.

Faraday introduced a series of six Christmas lectures for children at the Royal Institution in 1826. In 1831 Faraday returned to his work on electricity and made what is arguably his most important discovery, namely that of electro-magnetic induction. This discovery was the opposite of that which he had made ten years earlier. He showed that a magnet could induce an electrical current in a wire. Thus he was able to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy and discover the first dynamo. Again he made lines of force central to his thinking. He published his first paper in what was to become a series on Experimental researches on electricity in 1831. He read the paper before the Royal Society on 24 November of that year.

In 1832 Faraday began to receive honours for his major contributions to science. In that year he received an honorary degree from the University of Oxford. In February 1833 he became Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution. Further honours such as the Royal Medal and the Copley Medal, both from the Royal Society, were to follow. In 1836 he was made a Member of the Senate of the University of London, which was a Crown appointment.

During this period, beginning in 1833, Faraday made important discoveries in electrochemistry. He went on to work on electrostatics and by 1838 he [1]:-

... was in a position to put all the pieces together into a coherent theory of electricity.

The extremely high workload eventually told on Faraday's health and in 1839 he suffered a nervous breakdown. He did recover his health and by 1845 he began intense research activity again. The work which he undertook at this time was the result of mathematical developments in the subject. Faraday's ideas on lines of force had received a mathematical treatment from William Thomson. He wrote to Faraday on 6 August 1845 telling him of his mathematical predictions that a magnetic field should affect the plane of polarised light. Faraday had attempted to detect this experimentally many years earlier but without success. Now, with the idea reinforced by Thomson, he tried again and on 13 September 1845 he was successful in showing that a strong magnetic field could rotate the plane of polarisation, and moreover that the angle of rotation was proportional to the strength of the magnetic field. Faraday wrote (see for example [1]):-

That which is magnetic in the forces of matter has been affected, and in turn has affected that which is truly magnetic in the force of light.

He followed his line of experiments which led him to discover diamagnetism.

By the mid 1850s Faraday's mental abilities began to decline. At around the same time Maxwell was building on the foundations Faraday had created developing a mathematical theory which would always have been out of reach for Faraday. However Faraday continued to lecture at the Royal Institution but declined the offer of the Presidency of the Royal Society in 1857.

He continued to give the children's Christmas lectures. In 1859-60 he gave the Christmas lectures on the various forces of matter. At the following Christmas he gave the children's lectures on the chemical history of the candle. These two final series of lectures by Faraday were published and have become classics. The Christmas lectures at the Royal Institution, begun by Faraday, continue today but now reach a much greater audience since they are televised. I [EFR] have watched these lectures with great interest over many years. They are a joy for anyone interested as I am in the "public understanding of science". I particularly remember lectures by Carl Sagan on "the planets" and mathematics lectures by Chris Zeeman and Ian Stewart.

The Royal Institution literature states:-

[Faraday's] magnetic laboratory, where many of his most important discoveries were made, was restored in 1972 to the form it was known to have had in 1854. A museum, adjacent to the laboratory, houses a unique collection of original apparatus arranged to illustrate the most important aspects of Faraday's immense contribution to the advancement of science in his fifty years at the Royal Institution.

Martin, in [4], gives this indication of Faraday's character:-

He was by any sense and by any standard a good man; and yet his goodness was not of the kind that make others uncomfortable in his presence. His strong personal sense of duty did not take the gaiety out of his life. ... his virtues were those of action, not of mere abstention ...